Lucas Axton checked his left boot for the photo before he stepped into the shed. His brother was nine in it, pulling a face. Lucas was twelve. Seven years of hunting vampires had not answered where the boy went, and last week a vampire lord's minions had torn through the back wall of Lucas's old school. Three kids were gone. Lucas meant to kill the lord who sent them. He was not ready, and he knew it. He unwrapped the bandaging on his cricket bat and wound it tighter. The shed smelled like old sawdust. In the far corner stood the training post his father had built for his brother years ago, a wooden figure with red painted shorts and three targets nailed to its chest, jaw, and ribs. Its left shoulder target sat crooked from an old hit. "You came back," the dummy said. "Four months." "I know." Lucas rolled his shoulder. "Chest first." "Look at it before you swing." Lucas swung. The bat clipped the ribs target instead. Wood cracked. The dummy's head did not move. "You didn't look," the dummy said. "I looked." "You looked at me." Lucas set his feet again. He stared at the chest target until the red paint stopped blurring. He swung. The bat hit dead center. The dummy rocked on its base. "Better." They went for an hour. Jaw. Ribs. Chest. Lucas missed the crooked shoulder twice and split the wood on the third try. His arms burned. He kept swinging. The shed door opened. A woman stepped in without knocking. Flamingo hair under a wide black hat. Green cloak with gold tassels that swept the sawdust. Lucas had heard of her at the hunter den. Fourteen kills. She made them look at her first. "Roslin Thorne," she said. "You're Axton." "Yes." "The lord who hit your school moves through a valley two days east. I've been on his trail six weeks. He kills three at a time. Children, usually." She looked at the dummy, then at the bat. "You're slow on the left. Fix it or stay home." "I'm coming." "Then we leave at dawn. I don't wait." She walked out. The door swung shut. Lucas lowered the bat. His hands shook. He had wanted more weeks in the shed. He was getting one night. "She's a killer," the dummy said. "I know." "Aim." Lucas turned back to the chest target. He looked at it a long time. Then he swung, and hit it clean, and swung again. He would train until sunrise and leave with her at first light. Ready or not, the lord was moving, and so was he.